To Vanquish Darkness (Le Sombre #1)

Chapter 45

45

1836 COUNTRYSIDE BEYOND MORDELLES, FRANCE

A malie jumped up from the bed and would have crumpled to the floor had Theo not caught her.

“Shh, wait a second.” He smoothed her hair, and she turned to look at him. There was a lit candle now sitting on the desk, and the flickering light made his skin glow.

That face. She’d seen it again and again. She’d been called by different names, lived in different bodies, but that face. Amalie searched his eyes, peeling away the layers of what she’d seen. What she knew in this life and what she’d found in others. She’d trusted him. Known him. Loved him.

“How many times did you find me?” she whispered.

Theo’s fingers trembled. “Three.”

“Only three?” Amalie exhaled. He’d lived for two thousand years, a human lifespan was fleeting, and they’d only met three times? “When?”

Theo’s hand dropped to her waist. “You were there at the beginning.”

Amalie pressed her hand over his and drew a deep breath. “Which was?”

“The first time, we lived in the south. During the Roman Empire. Guardians and vampires together.”

Amalie let out a long exhale. She’d lived during the Roman Empire? “How did I die?”

Theo’s eyes darkened. “The first time?”

She nodded, swallowing hard. The idea that she’d died more than once made her insides flip.

“Your blood gave power to those who drank it. We had a friend who wanted it for herself.”

The answer was simple, and yet so complicated it made her head throb. Amalie pressed at the edges of her mind, stretching it like taffy. She wanted to ask him everything.

Theo cleared his throat. “After our parting, I waited sixteen hundred years, three months, and?—”

Amalie put a finger to his lips. “Sixteen hundred years?”

Theo’s eyes were glassy.

“And this is the third time?” she whispered.

He nodded, clenching his jaw. As she gazed at the profile of his face, the layers of her knowing seemed to suddenly snap into one solid picture. She knew Theo Vallon. He’d never changed, after all this time, and she had. Sixteen hundred years.

Amalie reached out a hand. His dark lashes brushed his cheek as her fingers reached his jaw. “Look at me.” A soft “hmm” left his lips as he turned, his eyes meeting hers. “How did you find me? You said you weren’t sure until you scented my blood, but you were here. How?”

“You bonded me. Under a blood moon. I can always feel when you’re reborn, but I never know exactly where. I watch. I wait. It’s how I found you the second time. This time,” Theo shook his head. “It proved more difficult.”

“But you found me.”

“I did.”

She thought of him appearing in her bedroom and roughly pulling her into his arms. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. Of him stoking the fire in the shed that first night. How he barely looked at her and made her feel like a fool. How he’d left her alone in the castle, answered her in clipped sentences. Never once had she thought he’d cared for her in the least.

Then lastly, she thought of the bitter look on his face in Uncle Oren’s study. Even when I try to make you hate me, I can’t commit.

Tears pricked her eyes. “Why did you want me to hate you?”

Something flashed behind Theo’s eyes, and his grip on her tightened. He swore under his breath and reached for her arm. “We have to go. Now.”

“Theo, what?—”

He lifted her arm, turning it so she could look at the mark on her skin. His mark, and?—

“What the hell is that?” She stared at the blood red symbol darkening in her skin above Theo’s oval signet and clutched her middle as a needling pain threaded through her. “Theo, what is happening?”

“Helena. The friend I told you about. There’s no time to explain.” He pulled her up off the bed. “Pack now. Enough for at least two nights. I’ll get the others.”

Before she could stop him, he disappeared from the room. She glanced back at her arm and stared at the mark. Two chains, twisted together. One barbed and jagged, the other smooth and unbroken. What did it mean?

Her hand still clutched her middle, aware of that slicing shard settling next to the warmth that stretched toward Theo.

A friend. Helena.

She'd heard that name. On the rooftop, when Theo had been talking to Ren. What had he said? She couldn't remember, but the thought of it made her shiver. It had been a dig, and Ren hadn't taken it lightly.

She needed to move. If Theo said she was in danger, she believed him. Amalie had left her satchel downstairs in Oren's office, but she could still gather her things. She pulled open the doors of her armoire, and paused. Her mother's dress. The pale blue fabric and white swans. Bethany said she'd put it back.

She fingered the soft fabric, worn with time and use.

“It was yours. Your favorite."

Amalie's breath caught at the sound of Theo's voice.

"I—” His breath caught. “I bought you the fabric. The last time."

The last time. This fabric couldn't have been more than forty or fifty years old. "It was my mother's."

"It was her mother's before that," he whispered, his hand brushing her neck. "It was her favorite."

Tears welled in her eyes, her hand frozen to the door of her armoire. “That strip of fabric. In the castle.”

“Yours. I kept it.”

Amalie’s mind reeled. Her mother. Her mother’s mother. She had lived, she had died. How was it possible?

Theo’s hand landed on the small of her back. "Are you ready? The others are?—"

"You can't do that." She spun, her hands clenched at her sides. He was so close, she had to tip her head to meet his eyes.

"Do what?"

"Say something like that and then tell me I need to rush out of this house. That we're in danger, when all I want is—" She sucked in a breath, heat flashing through her center.

Theo stilled, his eyes liquid pools. "What do you want?"

You bonded me. Under a blood moon. She didn't know what a bond meant or how it was accomplished. She'd only seen flashes of what Theo had been to her in her other lives, but she knew what he was to her in this one.

Her heart momentarily forgot it was supposed to keep rhythm as his scent invaded her senses. She didn't fight it. She didn't ever want to fight it again . "I want to know what this feels like." Amalie threaded her hand around the back of his neck, urging his head toward hers.

Theo's eyes glinted in the candlelight, his expression tortured with want. His scent swirled through her as his lips brushed hers, soft and tentative. Theo pulled back just enough to say, "I've never forgotten—not for a second—what this feels like," and Amalie tugged harder, angry that he'd wasted a second of this moment on words.

Theo huffed a laugh as their lips crashed against each other, this time desperate and bruising. Amalie fisted her hand in his shirt, willing him closer even though his chest was already flush with hers. She wanted more. She wanted?—

Theo parted her lips with his and flicked his tongue over her lower lip.

“Yes.” That. She wanted more of that. Amalie tasted him. Teased her tongue against his as her hands fought with the fabric of his shirt. She thought of every time Theo had been in his room shirtless. How she'd watched him, traced the swirls of his runes with secret glances, imagined the feel of him. Even when she'd hated him, she'd wanted to run her hands over his skin, and now?—

The creak of a board in the hall sent her heart into her throat. Theo jolted, and in a flash, hid behind the open door.

The door was open? Of course it was. Theo had come in, and she hadn't even thought to check before groping him like a feral cat.

When she looked up, Bethany stood in the doorway. Her sister's sleepy eyes narrowed. "Are you alright?"

Amalie nodded, pursing her swollen lips. "Mmhmm." She turned and grabbed a pair of slacks and two tunics from the shelf with trembling hands. "I'm coming."

"Uncle says he needs us in the parlor now."

"Right. I only need to find socks."

Bethany frowned, and her eyes crinkled at the corners. "Was this how it was? The first time?"

Amalie thought back to that night. To her screaming in the woods and Uncle Oren hauling her back to the house as she stretched back toward that clearing in the trees. Toward her mother's lifeless body. How Maurielle had held onto her as Oren had thrown their belongings into a cart.

"No." Amalie shook her head. "It's nothing like the first time." Bethany's teeth worried her lower lip. "Go. I'll follow you down."

Bethany did as she asked, and Amalie swiped socks and undergarments from her drawer. When she turned, Theo was still standing in the shadows, pressed against the wall.

"You're coming with us?" Her voice trembled imagining him disappearing into the night.

Theo nodded, his brow drawn. "I drew up a plan years ago for this eventuality. I have a place."

"You expected this?"

His shoulders tensed, his voice tight. "It's the same every time."

"Helena." Amalie spoke the name faster than necessary. She didn't know what it meant, but she knew it wasn't good.

"She will find you, Amalie. Her bond is slower to form, but when our mark appears, hers is quick to follow."

Amalie twisted her arm, inspecting the two marks. Theo's hadn't appeared until the day before. "Does it always take so long? After rebirth?"

Theo shook his head. "I was careful this time."

With those words, the pieces tumbled into place. His vigilance. The bite in her room. The distance, the cold glances, the refusal to answer her questions.

"You gave me your bedroom." Amalie strode toward the door, stopping in front of him.

"It was always meant for you." His thumb brushed over his signet. "And this mark, it was never mine, Amalie."

Images of that signet flashed through her mind. On the doors at the edge of the sand. The ring they all wore on their fingers, the carved wood in the castle. Her voice caught in her throat. It was always meant for you.

"Amalie!" Her uncle called up the stairs.

"Coming!" She called back, her voice strained.

"No, stay in your room. I need Theo. Now,” he growled.

Amalie turned, and Theo’s expression darkened. He was gone in an instant, followed by Bethany, Matilde, and Ghislaine stumbling back up the stairs.

Amalie flew to the window and opened the shutters. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she searched the gardens below until her eyes landed on a shadowed figure outside the gate.

Her breath hitched at the familiar features illuminated in the moonlight.

Ren.